I rang Traveline North Wales to ask if getting to Mechlyn Spa, North Wales, for a seven-thirty curtain-up next Saturday would involve kayak, farmer’s cart or donkey cavalcade. Nerys, helping me, sighed; I heard typing noises, and she gave me the time of a bus from Aberystwyth to Mechlyn Spa leaving at two-fourteen on that Saturday afternoon. And I didn’t ask for a second opinion as I have done with all call centre advice since July when a phone-psychic wished me luck with my third pregnancy. Moiling off the train and down the hill to the Aberystwyth bus station, I found that the bus Nerys had highlighted only ran at two-fourteen on market day: every alternate Wednesday. In three days, ten hours and fifty-six minutes time. Stranded in Aberystwyth. Frazzled from touring as Madame Galina Prima Ballerina. Chronically sore where ligaments in the foot I favoured for pirouettes were ...
Just a flaneur, flanning away.